Lesson 1 This lesson will set the scene for the following unit of work in Celebrations. The teacher will firstly show students the video of the people dancing around excitedly. Celebrations bring people together and even if they are far apart they can still celebrate the same thing! Guided and scaffolded by their teacher, students will then brainstorm the many different celebrations that occur worldwide. Are there some celebrations that are unique to Australians? Students and teacher will engage in a class discussion about the uniqueness of different celebrations. What aspects make celebrations unique? (special date on the calender, special clothing, people/ family members coming together and FOOD! The teacher will then ask students to call out celebrations and as a whole class activity - have a look at the http://taste.com.au/ website. If time permits, students can draw their favourite food and write underneath it what celebration is it eaten at.
Lesson 2 The teacher will model how to write an information report based on "birthdays" as a celebration (guided writing activity). The teacher will use the IWB to show the template (appendix 4) which includes the heading, the introduction or general statement, paragraphs and conclusion. The teacher will ask the students to help construct the information report by involving students in decisions about content of the information report. Teacher will remind students of key grammatical features of the information report, i.e. use of classifying an factual adjectives, present tense, relating verbs and action verbs.
Lesson 3 Students will be reminded of the key grammatical features and structure of an information report. They will begin by watching a video of the Festival of the Winds celebration (appendix 3) and will then participate in a dictagloss activity. As a class they will listen to an information report read by the teacher on this celebration and will then work in small groups to jointly construct the information report using their shared notes. At the conclusion, each group will read their constructed text and will compare similarities and differences with the teacher's information report displayed on the IWB (Resource 2). Teacher will facilitate a class discussion on the grammatical features of this information report.
Lesson 4 This lesson will focus on independent writing and the teacher advises the students that they will be independently writing an information report on The Royal Easter Show. Students may need to be reminded about key grammatical features and structure of the information report. Each student will be given the template (as used in lesson 2 for modelled writing of information report - appendix 4) and asked to complete this when writing this information report. Students will be encouraged to use the computers in the classroom to research this topic to assist with their information report. The teacher will assess these independently constructed information reports to determine whether there is a particular feature of the information report which needs further scaffolding.
Lesson 5 In groups of 4, students are to choose a celebration. Using the internet and the taste website, let them explore what different types of foods are eaten at this celebration. Are there common spices that are in all the foods? Or are they all cooked in a specific way? In these same groups, students are to work collaboratively and produce a recipe that could be eaten at their celebration. They can be as imaginative as they want. Students need to ensure that they use the appropriate text type (a procedure) and use the correct language (each step must start with a verb).
Lesson 6 Within this lesson the students will be learning about Indigenous perspectives on their celebrations, especially to the local Indigenous community. In collaboration with the Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG) a local elder or representative will speak about their celebrations. Before the visit the teacher will prepare the students about being culturally sensitive and as well as brainstorm some questions they could ask their guest. Once the guest speaker has left, there will be a class discussion about the visit to clarify their thoughts and ideas about their local Indigenous community's celebrations.
Lesson 7 Following on from the previous lesson, students will be working to analyse the 2011 NAIDOC poster. Students will be identifying features and elements within the poster. The teacher will be guiding the students to notice other parts of the poster and the possible meanings or possible symbolic meanings. This lesson will be focusing upon identifying the vectors and symbolic representations and the importance of these two techniques within a poster. The students should be building a knowledge and understanding of the role and importance of poster to prepare them for their multimodal text, a poster on a cultural celebration.
Lesson 8 This lesson is supported by the previous lesson on visual literacy. In small groups students will identify and sort features and elements of a variety of information reports on celebrations. The groups will then sort the information into a series of key pieces of information about their celebrations including dress, food, music etc. Whole class then jointly constructs an information report poster on celebrations (in general) focusing on elements of visual literacy, including angles and vectors and grammatical and structural conventions of the text type. This lesson is designed to scaffold students towards the completing of a group information poster and presentation on a specific cultural celebration. The focus of the lesson is on both scaffolding students learning but also on consolidating knowledge of text type conventions and importance of visual literacy skills in meaning making.
Lesson 9 The lesson begins with students being placed into mixed ability to groups and assigned a cultural celebration. These celebrations should come from a diverse range of cultural and religious groups, perhaps steering away from well known celebrations such as Christmas (see appendix 3 for an example of possible celebrations students could research). This lesson should be undertaken in the library, with sufficient access to computers and internet search engines. Researching is supported by previously undertaken work on sources, bias and reliability in HSIE and English. Students work in their small groups to research for their poster.
Lesson 10 The final lesson will allow students to finalise their posters with their groups. This lesson will also allow the students to clarify their learning about celebrations and demonstrate the group work to collaboratively construct their poster on a culture's celebration. Each group will be given the opportunity to present their posters to the class. The students will need to work together to delegate roles within the presentation, ie who is going to introduce? Who will be speaking? Who will be holding the poster? Whilst still involving everyone in the group. They should also note down important features which they want to tell the class instead of reading off the poster during their presentation. After each presentation the audience (the rest of the class) will be given an opportunity to give a comment about the presentation or ask a question about the celebration. At the end of the unit the posters will be displayed on the walls of the classroom.
This lesson will set the scene for the following unit of work in Celebrations. The teacher will firstly show students the video of the people dancing around excitedly. Celebrations bring people together and even if they are far apart they can still celebrate the same thing! Guided and scaffolded by their teacher, students will then brainstorm the many different celebrations that occur worldwide. Are there some celebrations that are unique to Australians? Students and teacher will engage in a class discussion about the uniqueness of different celebrations. What aspects make celebrations unique? (special date on the calender, special clothing, people/ family members coming together and FOOD! The teacher will then ask students to call out celebrations and as a whole class activity - have a look at the
http://taste.com.au/ website. If time permits, students can draw their favourite food and write underneath it what celebration is it eaten at.
The teacher will model how to write an information report based on "birthdays" as a celebration (guided writing activity). The teacher will use the IWB to show the template (appendix 4) which includes the heading, the introduction or general statement, paragraphs and conclusion. The teacher will ask the students to help construct the information report by involving students in decisions about content of the information report. Teacher will remind students of key grammatical features of the information report, i.e. use of classifying an factual adjectives, present tense, relating verbs and action verbs.
Students will be reminded of the key grammatical features and structure of an information report. They will begin by watching a video of the Festival of the Winds celebration (appendix 3) and will then participate in a dictagloss activity. As a class they will listen to an information report read by the teacher on this celebration and will then work in small groups to jointly construct the information report using their shared notes. At the conclusion, each group will read their constructed text and will compare similarities and differences with the teacher's information report displayed on the IWB (Resource 2). Teacher will facilitate a class discussion on the grammatical features of this information report.
This lesson will focus on independent writing and the teacher advises the students that they will be independently writing an information report on The Royal Easter Show. Students may need to be reminded about key grammatical features and structure of the information report. Each student will be given the template (as used in lesson 2 for modelled writing of information report - appendix 4) and asked to complete this when writing this information report. Students will be encouraged to use the computers in the classroom to research this topic to assist with their information report. The teacher will assess these independently constructed information reports to determine whether there is a particular feature of the information report which needs further scaffolding.
In groups of 4, students are to choose a celebration. Using the internet and the taste website, let them explore what different types of foods are eaten at this celebration. Are there common spices that are in all the foods? Or are they all cooked in a specific way? In these same groups, students are to work collaboratively and produce a recipe that could be eaten at their celebration. They can be as imaginative as they want. Students need to ensure that they use the appropriate text type (a procedure) and use the correct language (each step must start with a verb).
Within this lesson the students will be learning about Indigenous perspectives on their celebrations, especially to the local Indigenous community. In collaboration with the Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG) a local elder or representative will speak about their celebrations. Before the visit the teacher will prepare the students about being culturally sensitive and as well as brainstorm some questions they could ask their guest. Once the guest speaker has left, there will be a class discussion about the visit to clarify their thoughts and ideas about their local Indigenous community's celebrations.
Following on from the previous lesson, students will be working to analyse the 2011 NAIDOC poster. Students will be identifying features and elements within the poster. The teacher will be guiding the students to notice other parts of the poster and the possible meanings or possible symbolic meanings. This lesson will be focusing upon identifying the vectors and symbolic representations and the importance of these two techniques within a poster. The students should be building a knowledge and understanding of the role and importance of poster to prepare them for their multimodal text, a poster on a cultural celebration.
This lesson is supported by the previous lesson on visual literacy. In small groups students will identify and sort features and elements of a variety of information reports on celebrations. The groups will then sort the information into a series of key pieces of information about their celebrations including dress, food, music etc. Whole class then jointly constructs an information report poster on celebrations (in general) focusing on elements of visual literacy, including angles and vectors and grammatical and structural conventions of the text type. This lesson is designed to scaffold students towards the completing of a group information poster and presentation on a specific cultural celebration. The focus of the lesson is on both scaffolding students learning but also on consolidating knowledge of text type conventions and importance of visual literacy skills in meaning making.
The lesson begins with students being placed into mixed ability to groups and assigned a cultural celebration. These celebrations should come from a diverse range of cultural and religious groups, perhaps steering away from well known celebrations such as Christmas (see appendix 3 for an example of possible celebrations students could research). This lesson should be undertaken in the library, with sufficient access to computers and internet search engines. Researching is supported by previously undertaken work on sources, bias and reliability in HSIE and English. Students work in their small groups to research for their poster.
The final lesson will allow students to finalise their posters with their groups. This lesson will also allow the students to clarify their learning about celebrations and demonstrate the group work to collaboratively construct their poster on a culture's celebration. Each group will be given the opportunity to present their posters to the class. The students will need to work together to delegate roles within the presentation, ie who is going to introduce? Who will be speaking? Who will be holding the poster? Whilst still involving everyone in the group. They should also note down important features which they want to tell the class instead of reading off the poster during their presentation. After each presentation the audience (the rest of the class) will be given an opportunity to give a comment about the presentation or ask a question about the celebration.
At the end of the unit the posters will be displayed on the walls of the classroom.